The Rules
Character Creation *GMs may individually decide how many points will be given out for character creation, depending on the desired general level of characters. *Divide the sum of your physical attributes (Might, Precision, Agility) by 10 in order to figure out the number of physical skill points your character can start with. Do the same with your mental attributes (Wits, Will, Dynamism) to figure out the number of mental skill points your character can start with. *Stamina = Might *Willpower = Will *Blood = 8 for Vardoks and Young Nevtimak, 10 for humans, 20 for Salmak and Adult Nevtimak. *Soul = 2 points for every mental attribute above 30. 5 points for every mental attribute above 50. *There are 5 levels of skill: Normal, Improved, Expert, Master, Legendary. Each level costs 1 skill point. Thus, to have a skill at Expert costs 3 skill points. *You may have 1 free normal skill that has to do with your character's Profession. *For every point you put into Status you gain a 20% chance that someone will recognize your name when it is mentioned in your home city, an 18% chance in your home region, a 16% chance elsewhere. You also gain a number of followers for every point. 1 point = 2 followers, 2 points = 10 followers, 3 points = 50 followers, 4 points equals 250 followers, and 5 points allows you to design your own faction or lead an existing one. *Every point you put into education gives you a number of extra starting skill points equal to your Wits/10. Putting any points at all into Education allows you to gain Knowledge Points from reading, at the rate of 1 per level. Your Education score may be added to your total score when using Gnosis skills (Skill + Attribute + Education) *If you have 50 levels in an attribute, you may gain an Active Ability, a special power you may use for a legend point. If you have 100 levels in an attribute, you may use the ability without cost. *You may have 1 free item for every skill of expert or higher. You may have 1 free item that has to do with your Profession. *You may have 1 favored skill category for every attribute above 30. The favored category must be related to that attribute. *You may have a free Trait. Successive Traits may be granted by the GM, subject to player approval. Traits may also be purchased. The first nature purchased costs 5 points, and the cost doubles for every successive nature purchased. *Items may be purchased during character creation for the following costs: 1 for any small item, 2 for any medium item, 3 for any large item. If the item has special properties (i.e. is enchanted or uses advanced technology), it costs two extra points. Starting wealth is decided by rolling a d100. Extra d100s may be bought for 1 point each. Character Upgrading *Every attribute costs a certain number of Knowledge Points to upgrade to the next level. Levels 1-50 cost 5 knowledge points, levels 51-75 cost 10, and levels 76-100 cost 15. *Skills cost 5 points to go from Normal to Improved, 5 to go from Improved to Expert, 10 to go from Expert to Master, and 15 to go from Master to Legendary. *Skills from a favored skill category cost 2 knowledge points fewer to upgrade. *Every time an attribute upgrades, a player may choose one of his character's skills to upgrade. The upgraded skill must be related to the upgraded attribute. *Skills in the process of being learned are called "ghost skills." To begin learning a ghost skill, you must make a successful Wits check. The difficulty of the Wits check starts at 5. Every related skill that you possess of Improved or greater decreases the difficulty by 1. It takes 10 knowledge points to turn a ghost skill into a Normal skill, unless the skill is in a favored category. Combat Movement *A character may potentially move 5 spaces for every 10 levels in Agility above level 10. If a character's agility is below or equal to 10, he or she may only move a number of spaces equal to his Agility If he moves more than half that amount, his turn is over. If he moves half or below that amount, he may still attack. *1 space equals 1 inch out of game and 10 feet in game. Ranged Combat *All ranged weapons have a set maximum range. *Difficulty of a ranged attack is equal to the number of spaces /2, plus circumstantial modifiers. *For a hit outside of maximum range, the character must pass a Precision/Skill check and succeed in a luck roll. *Manpowered ranged attacks may be dodged and blocked. Ballistic or energy-based ranged attacks may not be dodged unless they are large and the player can see them coming (Bullets are difficult to track with your eyes, but cannonballs would be easier). General Combat *When Ranged or Magic characters have distance between them and their melee opponents, they may attack first, proceeding in order of highest Agility to lowest. When Melee opponents are in adjacent squares, Agility order includes them. *Characters may hold off their turn until later in the turn order, waiting to see what happens to other players. They may intervene in the combats of characters. *Characters begin their turns by declaring their attacks. PCs or NPCs being attacked may defend. All of a character's attacks must be resolved before moving on to the next character's turn. Players may intervene in attacks, but only if they have held off their turn or have equal Agility. *Characters whose Agility levels are equal must roll a d10 each round to see who acts first. *Each turn represents roughly 10 seconds of in-game time. *A player may have only 30 seconds to decide what he wants to do. The player may ask up to 3 preliminary questions before the 30 seconds are counted down. *The GM may roll 1d100 to represent random NPC attributes. These attributes must be recorded as they are rolled. *Fleeing characters have a -1 to defense and attack. *Successful sneak attacks are unresisted. *Spells may be cast in one turn, or charged up over several turns. Charging over several turns decreases the stamina cost of the spell by 10 points per turn, but increases the stamina cost by 10 per turn. *Close range actions may be chained (strung together) in one turn under the following conditions. #You must have a higher Agility than all your opponents. #All your opponents must be in adjacent spaces. #You must kill or incapacitate each opponent in succession. * Might determines damage for melee attacks and man-powered ranged attacks. Guns, crossbows, and grenades each have a set number of damage dice. Roll a number of d10s equal to your Might modifier, or for every attack number in the case of a gun or crossbow. Doubles increase the wound severity by 1. For instance, if a player rolls two 6s, the overall result is a wound of 7. * Precision determines whether or not you hit your target, both for melee and ranged attacks. If the target is moving, Precision must be weighed against Agility. If the target is stationary, Precision must be weighed against an objective difficulty level. * Will determines damage and effectiveness for magical attacks. A character can choose to make an opponent roll a number of d10s equal to his Will modifier. * Wits determines whether or not magic spells hit their targets, and whether or not they do what they're supposed to do, in the case of untested magic. Magical Wits checks are weighed against objective difficulties. Mass Combat *Armies can win by destroying their opponents or forcing them to withdraw or surrender. *Each army unit has Man Count (MC) equal to the number of people in it. *Opposing army units must roll d10s to decide how many soldiers are taken out of the fight each turn. A unit may roll 1d10 for every 10 men in the unit, or 1d100 for every 100 men. *Leadership adds a +2 bonus for every level a character has in it. *Tactics skills add a +2 bonus for every level a character has in them. *Terrain can add bonuses or penalties to attack rolls. *Each army has a Discipline Rating from 1 to 10. If an army reaches 0 Discipline, the army will either surrender or make a disorderly retreat. Certain events during the battle take away discipline points. *PCs involved in the battle are treated like normal soldiers if they are in formation. If not, they act on their own. PCs in formation must roll luck to see if they are hit by enemy fire. If they are hit they must roll different amounts of dice based on where they are in the formation. Count the ranks from back to front. The resulting number is the number of d10s an in-formation PC must roll if hit. *If a PC is part of a formation involved in Melee combat, combat will zoom in each turn to focus on that character's specific conflict with an enemy NPC. NPCs take damage normally. *Damaging spells can add 1d10, 1d20, 1d10 + 1d20, 2d20, or 2d20 + 1d10 to attack rolls. *Shield spells may protect a number of men equal to 2 x the difficulty level for 1 turn. Subtract this number from the number rolled each turn. *Healing spells may heal a number of men equal to the difficulty level for 1 turn. Subtract this number from the number rolled each turn. Losing a leader = -3 Outnumbered = -1 Greatly Outnumbered (by half or more) = -2 TIred (fighting after marching) = -1 Trauma (enemy has done something horrible right in front of them) = -2 *An army leader may use his Leadership skill to rally his troops at any point during the battle. He may restore a number of Discipline equal to his skill in Leadership. However, every time a leader rallies his troops, this number decreases by 1 until it becomes impossible to rally them. For example, a leader with a leadership skill of 5 may restore 5 Discipline the first time he rallies his troops, but only 4 discipline the next time, and 3 after that, and so on. *The following armies lose 1 less Discipline every time Discipline must be lost: Amoran Guard, Eclipse Guard, any Salmak army. Also, Empty Ones do not have a Discipline Rating, and never lose Discipline. Damage *Characters roll an extra 1d10 of damage for every point of margin above an opponent. *There are 5 types of wound: Slight, Minor, Major, Debilitating, and Severe. Slight '= -1 to body part's related attribute. Numbers: 1 '''Minor '= -5 to body part's related attribute. Numbers: 2,3,4 'Major '= -10 to body part's related attribute. Numbers: 5,6,7 '''Debilitating = Body part is rendered usable only through force of will. If this happens to one arm or leg, the other may be used. Incapacitating wounds give a -20 penalty to all actions due to shock/pain. Numbers: 8,9 Severe = Body part is either completely severed or crushed. Either way, it is unusable. If this happens to a vital area, the character is dead. Severe wounds give a -40 penalty to all actions due to shock/pain. Numbers: 10 *Wounds affect different attributes depending on where they are located. Vital areas are marked with asterisks. Hits on vital areas double the wound number. 'Torso* '= (Might) 'Arms/Hands '= (Might, Precision) 'Legs/Feet '= (Agility) 'Head* '= (Wits, Will, Dynamism) *There are 6 types of damage: Blunt, Pierce, Slash, Burn, Freeze, and Poison. *Blunt damage has a chance to stun if applied to a vital area. Minor wounds will stun for 1 turn, and have a 10% chance. Major wounds will stun for 2 turns, and have a 20% chance. Debilitating wounds will stun for 4 turns and have a 40% chance. Severe wounds always stun. *Pierce Damage: Piercing wounds increase by 1 wound number every two turns if minor, 1 turn if major or incapacitating, but only on head or torso. *Slash Damage: Doubles attribute penalties for arms and legs. *Burn: For Slight, Minor, and Major wounds, burns give -1, -5, and -10 penalties to all actions due to pain. Players may make will checks to ignore this pain at a difficulty of 10 x the wound number Incapacitating and Mortal wounds are normal, and actually cause no pain at all. If character is on fire, wounds increase by 2 each turn. Major and Incapacitating burns will become infected if they are left untreated. *Freeze: For Slight and Minor wounds, frostbite gives -1, and -5 penalties to all actions due to pain. Players may make will checks to ignore this pain at a difficulty of 10 x the wound number. Major, Incapacitating and Mortal wounds are normal, and cause no pain at all. Major and Incapacitating frostbite wounds will become infected if they are left untreated. *Poison: Poisons drain attributes and stamina. They can drain physical, mental, or both, but they always drain stamina. Lethal poisons double their damage every turn until the person dies. Nonlethal ones can either apply temporarily or permanently, depending on the poison. A poisoned person dies 1 turn after their stamina has been exhausted. Magic See Entry on Magic *Spells cost 10 stamina for every space a spell must cover or traverse. *Stamina costs for sustaining spells are equal to the number of turns the spell is active x the original stamina cost of the spell. *Wound number x 10 = stamina cost for healing spells. *Stamina cost for mind magic is equal to opponent's mental attribute (Intelligence, Willpower, Perception). *Number of attribute points to be increased x 10 equals stamina cost for buffs. *Stamina cost of Shield spells equals amount of damage to shield. Wound numbers will be subtracted from the amount of damage the shield can take until the shield is exhausted. Example: Mike designs his shield spell to take 20 damage. Zach attacks the shield and rolls damage dice. The highest number he rolls is a 10. This number is subtracted from Mike's shield damage of 20, leaving his Shield damage at 10. Difficulty Levels *1 - Simple *2 - Easy *3 - Moderate *4 - Challenging *5 - Hard *6 - Advanced *7 - Heroic *8 - Brutal *9 - Insane *10 - Monumental Impossible Difficulties: *11 - Impossible Level 1 *12 - Impossible Level 2 *13 - Impossible Level 3 *14 - Impossible Level 4 *15 - Impossible Level 5 Difficulty Modifiers Range: +1 difficulty for every 10 spaces Small Target: +1 Moving Target: +1 Distraction: +1 Multitasking: +1 difficulty for 1 additional task, +2 for two, +4 for three, and continues to double. Bad Conditions (low light, bad weather, etc.): +1 difficulty for every bad condition Character Status: Character bonuses and penalties must be taken into account. Shapeshifting Small to Medium/Medium to Small: +10 Small to Large/Large to Small: +20 Small to Huge/Huge to Small: +30 Medium to Large/Large to Medium: +10 Medium to Huge/Huge to Medium: +20 Large to Huge/Huge to Large: +10 General Detail Manipulation: +20 Specific Detail Manipulation: +30 Chance Numbers 1-2 = -20 3-8 = -10 9-12 = Neutral 13-18 = +10 19-20 = +20 Chance is only rolled when two competing characters are within 2 points of one another, or when a character is within 2 points of a difficulty level. Category:Rules to Esk